J. Alexander Cohen has a new MM fantasy book out (gay, bi): Talio’s Codex.
Is love worth destroying his reputation?
Ten years ago, the theft of his codex destroyed Talio Rossa’s career as a magistrate in the four cities. But when his ex-wife—finally willing to forgive finding him in bed with a man—presents him a long-shot legal case, he has the chance to get his career back on track.
While fighting to rejoin the legal community, Talio uncovers a conspiracy so big it threatens the origins of the four cities themselves. Their prosperity is only thanks to their connection by magical floating waterways and the brilliance of their legal system, now regarded as near scripture.
To save his career, Talio must work with both the one who doomed his marriage and the hooded, heretical man who sets his heart aflame but is determined to plead guilty to a murder he didn’t commit. To stand a chance of winning the case, saving his career and the man of his dreams, Talio will have to uncover an explosive secret destined to blow the legal system apart.
Trigger Warnings: Angst (intense emotional scenes) • Discrimination (religious and sexual orientation/gender) • Dubious consent • Explicit sex scenes • Infidelity • Murder (not onscreen, but there’s a homicide trial) • Cultural/Religious conflict • Social stigma (facial scarring) • Suicide (mention) • Substance use (alcohol, alcoholism) • Violence (two brief attempts on one character’s life) • That said, there’s a happy ending – promise!
Get It At Amazon | Publisher | Universal Buy Link
Excerpt
Talio Rossa’s dowsing rod jerked sideways.
He looked up from the spot where he’d been concentrating. All the other scavengers were bent over their own long, narrow strips of pale blue mineral. None had reacted. This was his discovery alone, then. If he could trust the magic in the dowsing rod.
He knew every bit of his rectangular strip of merinite. False merinite, rather. Absolutely worthless, found in abundance, and identical in every way to the priceless specks of true merinite that could still be found here and there. The dowsing rod would only react to true merinite. Talio hadn’t seen it twitch this violently in years.
He rubbed his aching lower back and looked past the roped-off sections of false merinite, into the forest beyond. A ragged line of stones inscribed with runes marked the boundary. Talio could just make out the creatures and beasts beyond the translucent barrier. A hovering wyvern. A half-human, half-dragon creature banging its head against the shimmering wall. An immense coiled snake watching him with intent eyes. And beyond them, the Impassable Forest. The bodies of the mages. And if he strained his eyes, Talio could even see the old Royal Palace. The last remnants of the War of the Cities. Live creatures, dead mages and a crumbling palace imprisoned in the Impassable Forest for all time.
Talio bent down again and passed the dowsing rod carefully along the watery-blue merinite. And then the rod touched a woman’s beaded dress. He looked up and his former wife, Gawani, stood before him.
Talio froze. He had never expected such a day to come; his body and mind simply refused to react. A small part of him wanted to flee, but where would he go? He had run from her a decade earlier, to the small town of Velos. And now she’d found him, scavenging in the forest like a commoner.
This was not the same Gawani he’d once known. Her face held more lines. Under her beaded bonnet, her hair was darker. The figure she’d once prized was rounder, lusher.
“One moment,” Talio said. She did not reply. He glanced around for the two ragged ritual cups that by law accompanied every work site. Someone had taken them. Here they were, alone in the forest with no water for the ritual. But Gawani pulled something out of her purse. It was a small, heavy cube with two runnels and the tiniest dot of pale blue. True merinite. It was a water generator. How she had afforded it, he had no idea.
“Source of all things,” Gawani recited. “Quencher of fire. Cleanse my soul and purify me.” A tiny stream of water sprang from the merinite in the generator and flowed through the source runnel. He took the generator from her while she removed her gloves and washed her hands awkwardly under it, then held it out to him. Talio shook his head. It was common courtesy to offer the waters on arrival, but he did not want to take anything from her, not even symbolically.
“I could not believe you were working as a scavenger until I arrived here in Velos and saw for myself,” she said.
Talio handed the generator back to her. Should he hug her? Kiss her? Shake her hand? Instead, he shrugged. “It’s all I know how to do at my age.”
“You knew how to be a magistrate,” she said. “Until you didn’t.”
Talio nodded. “Just as I knew how to be a husband. Until I didn’t.”
Her eyes narrowed. He waited for her to lash out at him with her words. But she was still the old Gawani in one way: she retreated from the conflict. She looked at him with a tired glance and said, “I need your help.”
Talio gestured to a large flat rock that lay beyond the ring of merinite surrounding the barrier of the Impassable Forest. He and the others took their lunch there, or breaks whenever they wanted. He paid a small amount of silver for the privilege of dowsing for true merinite; it was up to him how much or how little he worked.
Like the dowsing rod, Talio had sensed Gawani was there before he’d seen her. He was as sensitive to her magic as the rod was to merinite. When Talio had started scavenging ten years ago, the rod shook in his hands every day until he’d been able to put Gawani and the past behind him. Even after all this time, she was still like a lodestone drawing him to her.
“Is it your mother?” Gawani Balsamo had lived in the shadow of Lady Dovuta for as long as he’d known her. She’d been adopted by the Balsamo family as a baby and had spent her life seemingly making up for it. Nothing but her mother could have caused his former wife to make the long trip from the Balsamo manse in Nuciferia to the small town of Velos where he now lived.
“No, not this time.” Gawani gave him a wry look. “Though of course she is involved with the matter. She is always involved with everything, somehow.” Then she grew serious. “There’s been a murder.”
When Gawani said nothing more, Talio prompted her. “And you are a public defender. Who is the accused?”
“His name is Pazli Mecomb.” An unusual name, for a Nuciferian. She gave an airy wave. “It is a simple matter. A local merchant came to visit my mother and ended up dead. Pazli was also present at the manse on other business.”
A “simple matter” of a death inside a noblewoman’s house. “Did he do it?”
“As a public defender, I should tell you he is innocent until he has gone through the legal system.” Gawani gave him a significant look. “But if I were a magistrate, I would find him guilty, based on the circumstances. What’s worse, he refuses to defend himself. It’s as if he has accepted the verdict already.”
Author Bio
I graduated from law school and worked in legal publishing for several years. I’ve spent the last 20 years as a family caregiver and working as a business writer. My first novel, BEAR LIKE ME (gay satire) was published in 2003 by Haworth Press and reprinted by Bear Bones Books in 2011. My second novel, TALIO’S CODEX (fantasy), is being released by Space Wizard Science Fantasy.
| Author Website | https://www.jalexandercohen.com |
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| Author Twitter | https://www.x.com/jalexcohen |